I allot you had ought to visit our great country Squire, said the Clockmaker, afore you quit for good and all. I calculate you don't understand us. The most splendid location atween the Poles is the United States, and the first man alive is Gineral Jackson, the hero of the age, him that skeered the British out of their seven senses. Then there's the great Danel Webster, its generally allowed, he's the greatest orator on the face of the airth, by a long chalk, and Mr. Van Buren, and Mr. Clay, and Amos Kindle, and Judge White, and a whole raft of statesmen, up to every thing, and all manner of politics; there aint the beat of 'em to be found any where. If you was to hear 'em, I concait you'd hear genuine pure English for once, any how; for its generally allowed we speak English better than the British. They all know me to be an American citizen here, by my talk, for we speak it complete in New England.

Yes, if you want to see a free people—them that makes their own laws, accordin to their own notions—go to the States. Indeed, if you can falt them at all, they are a little grain too free. Our folks have their head a trifle too much, sometimes, particularly in Elections, both in freedom of speech and freedom of Press. One hadnt ought to blart right out always all that comes uppermost. A horse that's too free frets himself and his rider too, and both on em lose flesh in the long run. I'd een a most as lives use the whip sometimes, as to be for everlastenly a pullin at the rein. One's arm gets plaguy tired, that's a fact. I often think of a lesson I larnt Jehiel Quirk once, for letten his tongue outrun his good manners. I was down to Rhode Island one summer to larn gilden and bronzin, so as to give the finishin touch to my clocks. Well, the folks elected me a hog reave, jist to poke fun at me, and Mr. Jehiel, a bean pole of a lawyer, was at the bottom of it. So one day, up to Town Hall, where there was an oration to be delivered on our Independence, jist afore the orator commenced, in runs Jehiel in a most allfired hurry; and, says he, I wonder, says he, if there's are a hog reave here, because if there be I require a turn of his office. And then, said he, a lookin up to me and callin out at the tip eend of his voice, Mr. Hogreave Slick, says he, here's a job out here for you. Folks snickered a good deal, and I felt my spunk a risen like half flood, that's a fact; but I bit in my breath, and spoke quite cool. Possible, says I; well duty, I do suppose, must be done, though it tante the most agreeable in the world. I've been a thinkin, says I, that I would be liable to a fine of fifty cents for sufferin a hog to run at large, and as you are the biggest one, I presume, in all Rhode Island, I'll jist begin by ringin your nose, to prevent you for the futur from pokin your snout where you hadnt ought to, and I seized him by the nose and nearly wrung it off. Well, you never heerd sich a shoutin and clappin of hands, and cheerin, in your life—they haw hawed like thunder. Says I Jehiel Quirk that was a superb joke of yourn, how you made the folks larf didn't you? You are een amost the wittiest critter I ever seed. I guess you'll mind your parts o' speech, and study the ACCIDENCE agin afore you let your clapper run arter that fashion, won't you?

I thought, said I, that among you republicans, there were no gradations of rank or office, and that all were equal, the Hogreave and the Governor, the Judge and the Crier, the master and his servant, and although, from the natur of things, more power might be entrusted to one than the other, yet that the rank of all was precisely the same. Well, said he, it is so in theory, but not always in practice, and when we do pracTISE it, it seems to go a little agin the grain, as if it warnt quite right neither. When I was last to Baltimore there was a Court there, and Chief Justice Marshall was detailed there for duty. Well, with us in New England, the Sheriff attends the Judge to Court and, says I to the Sheriff, why don't you escort that are venerable old Judge to the State House, he's a credit to our nation that man, he's actilly the first pot hook on the crane, the whole weight is on him, if it warnt for him the fat would be in the fire in no time, I wonder you don't show him that respect—it wouldn't hurt you one morsel, I guess. Says he, quite miffy like, don't he know the way to Court as well as I do? if I thought he didn't, I'd send one of my niggers to show him the road. I wonder who was his lackey last year, that he wants me to be hisn this time. It don't convene to one of our free and enlightened citizens, to tag arter any man, that's a fact; its too English and too foreign for our glorious institutions. He's bound by law to be there at 10 o'clock, and so be I, and we both know the way there I reckon.

I told the story to our minister, Mr. Hopewell (and he has some odd notions about him that man, though he don't always let out what he thinks); says he, Sam, that was in bad taste, (a great phrase of the old gentleman's that) in bad taste, Sam. That are Sheriff was a goney; don't cut your cloth arter his pattern, or your garment won't become you, I tell you. We are too enlightened, to worship our fellow citizens as the ancients did, but we ought to pay great respect to vartue and exalted talents in this life; and, arter their death, there should be statues of eminent men placed in our national temples, for the veneration of arter ages, and public ceremonies performed annually to their honor. Arter all, Sam, said he, (and he made a considerable of a long pause, as if he was dubersome whether he ought to speak out or not) arter all, Sam, said he, atween ourselves, (but you must not let on I said so, for the fullness of time han't yet come) half a yard of blue ribbon is a plaguy cheap way of rewarden merit, as the English do; and, although we larf at em, (for folks always will larf at what they hant got, and never can get,) yet titles aint bad things as objects of ambition, are they? Then, tappen me on the shoulder, and lookin up and smilin, as he always did when he was pleased with an idee, Sir Samuel Slick would not sound bad, I guess, would it Sam?

When I look at the English House of Lords, said he, and see so much larning, piety, talent, honor, vartue, and refinement, collected together, I ax myself this, here question, can a system which produces and sustains such a body of men, as the world never saw before and never will see agin, be defective? Well, I answer myself, perhaps it is, for all human institutions are so, but I guess its een about the best arter all. It wouldn't do here now, Sam, nor perhaps for a century to come, but it will come sooner or later with some variations. Now the Newtown pippin, when transplanted to England, don't produce such fruit as it does in Long Island, and English fruits don't preserve their flavor here, neither; allowance must be made for difference of soil and climate—(Oh Lord! thinks I, if he turns in to his orchard, I'm done for; I'll have to give him the dodge some how or another, through some hole in the fence, that's a fact—but he passed on that time.) So it is, said he, with constitutions; ourn will gradually approximate to theirn, and theirn to ourn. As they lose their strength of executive, they will varge to republicanism, and as we invigorate the form of government, (as we must do, or go to the old boy) we shall tend towards a monarchy. If this comes on gradually, like the changes in the human body, by the slow approach of old age, so much the better; but I fear we shall have fevers, and convulsion-fits, and cholics, and an everlastin gripin of the intestines first; you and I wont live to see it Sam, but our posteriors will, you may depend.

I don't go the whole figur with minister, said the Clockmaker, but I do opinionate with him in part. In our business relations we bely our political principles—we say every man is equal in the Union, and should have an equal vote and voice in the Government; but in our Banks, Rail Road Companies, Factory Corporations, and so on, every man's vote is regilated by his share and proportion of stock; and if it warnt so, no man would take hold on these things at all.

Natur ordained it so—a father of a family is head, and rules supreme in his household; his eldest son and darter are like first leftenants under him, and then there is an overseer over the niggers; it would not do for all to be equal there. So it is in the univarse, it is ruled by one Superior Power; if all the Angels had a voice in the Government I guess—Here I fell fast asleep; I had been nodding for some time, not in approbation of what he said, but in heaviness of slumber, for I had never before heard him so prosy since I first overtook him on the Colchester road. I hate politics as a subject of conversation, it is too wide a field for chit chat, and too often ends in angry discussion. How long he continued this train of speculation I do not know, but, judging by the different aspect of the country, I must have slept an hour.

I was at length aroused by the report of his rifle, which he had discharged from the waggon. The last I recollected of his conversation was, I think, about American angels having no voice in the Government, an assertion that struck my drowsy faculties as not strictly true; as I had often heard that the American ladies talked frequently and warmly on the subject of politics, and knew that one of them had very recently the credit of breaking up General Jackson's cabinet.—When I awoke, the first I heard was "well, I declare, if that aint an amazin fine shot, too, considerin how the critter was a runnin the whole blessed time; if I han't cut her head off with a ball, jist below the throat, that's a fact." There's no mistake in a good Kentucky rifle! I tell you. Whose head? said I, in great alarm, whose head, Mr. Slick? for heaven's sake what have you done? (for I had been dreaming of those angelic politicians the American ladies.) Why that are hen-partridge's head, to be sure, said he; don't you see how special wonderful wise it looks, a flutterin about arter its head. True, said I, rubbing my eyes, and opening them in time to see the last muscular spasms of the decapitated body; true, Mr. Slick, it is a happy illustration of our previous conversation—A BODY WITHOUT A HEAD.

No. XXX

A Tale of Bunker's Hill.